TEN OPPONENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 77, 31 March 1928, Page 9

TEN OPPONENTS.

OF WOMAN FRANCHISE All Parties Cheer Britain's New Bill. FOLLOWING THE DOMINIONS. (By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.)

LONDON, March 30. The Equal Franchise Bill was read a second time by 387 votes to 10, and the result was loudly cheered from all quarters of the House of Commons. The bill was then committed to committee of the whole House. Those who voted against the measure were all Conservative members.

In the course of the debate Lady Iveagh (Con., Southend-on-Sea) appealed to the H; use to pass the bill ungrudgingly.

Mr. E. Harmsworth (Con., Isle of Thanet), in opposing the bill, described it as a pose for the Socialists, a conundrum for the Liberals and a snare for the Conservatives. He said it would weaken the prestige of Parliament and lower the Government's authority.

Sir Hugh V. H. D. Lucas-Tooth (Con., Isle of Ely) said as the youngest member of the House he contraverted the suggestion that young women were incompetent to vote. •

Sir Charles Oman (Con., Oxford University), in opposing the bill, said it had done more to break up the Conservative party than anything since the war. It seemed to suggest that the Cabinet included not only hot heads but cold feet.

Captain A. Eden (Con., Warwick) said that as a constituent of Sir Charles Omans, he regretted the latter's speech, but Oxford University was always the home of lost causes.

Viscountess Astor (Con., Sutton) congratulated Mr. Baldwin on not heeding the "shriekings of the Wild Press." She said, the amendment was the die-hards' swan song. They might be singing like swans, but they, were thinking like geese.

Mr. Baldwin, in summing up the debate, said the Government in this bill was asking Parliament to fall into line with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. Two or three generations ago the franchise was a privilege. To-day it was a right. In view of the part had played in the war it was ridiculous to refuse them their claim to equal citizenship. He thought it a complete fallacy that women would vote by class or sex. They would be divided exactly as men were.

"We men have not always taken a rational view of women," said the Prime Minister. "We are apt to put her on a pedestal or to plunge her into a pit. Once this bill becomes law the last fraction of the truth of inequality will be gone for ever. I used to vote against women's suffrage, but the war taught me many things. I have learnt, I hope, to see such things as wealth, prosperity and worldly success in their proper proportions, and to realise that to build up the broken world half the human race is not enough. We must have the men and the women together."